21 June

Is God whispering to me?

by Jon Katz
Sometimes I'm listening
Sometimes I'm listening

Sometimes I do believe that God is whispering to me through my camera, and sometimes I’m listening. I’m not much for God talk, which is epidemic these days, but I am eager for a deeper spiritual life. When I walk past light or some flowers, something calls out to me, and I hear it. Sometimes things appears in the photos that I don’t see but feel. Is God whispering to me?

Sometimes I think so.

21 June

A spiritual connection

by Jon Katz
Love passing
Love passing

Some people (lots of people) say that digital photography has made it easy for anybody with a good camera to take a good photo. To some extent this is true. But one of the most difficult things to capture with any kind of equipment is the connection that connects people to animals. We see it and many of us feel it, but there are few photographs that evoke it, at least in my experience. Today I got lucky. Maria opened the barn doors so that she could brush the donkeys in the shade, out of the strong sun. We snuck them a bit of train also. Their love and trust for her grows daily, and today, in the soft and indirect light of the barn – strong light behind them, soft light inside – I felt I caught a slice of it, with a 70-200 mm zoom, taken from about 20 feet away.

I have to say I love this shot. The donkeys are quite sweet and my wife is profoundly loving. They connect.

21 June

High ground in a no-kill world

by Jon Katz
Fate of a lamb
Fate of a lamb

June 21, 2010- The notion that animals should never be put to death by humans is a new political idea, one that tends to occur more in urban and suburban parts of America than the rest of the country. Surely, that is a strange idea for anyone who lives on a farm. There is no such thing as a no-kill farm, and if there were a no-kill farm, it would not likely be a working farm.

Maria and I practically birthed Bartleby.  We found his frightened mom, got them together, watched them for days. Maria gave him a very stylish name – Bartleby after Bartleby the Scrivener – and I put up a ton of cute photos of him snuggling with his mom, and even with Lulu the donkey, his new pal. Every day on Facebook, people post messages about how adorable he is, and I get e-mail every day from people asking me to keep him at Bedlam Farm. He would make a neat kid’s book, I suspect. Might yet be one.

Bartleby is not my lamb, and in September, he is due to go back to the Vermont farm where he and his mother came from, a farm run by a good and ethical farmer and friend who does not raise sheep and lambs as pets. He makes his living from them.

We are talking about Bartleby, and whether or not he ought to stay here. We think the donkeys ought to stay here. I think Bartleby ought to go. Maria is not certain. Lots of my friends are practically begging me to keep him.

How does one make such a decision? It’s a moral choice in one way, to keep a lamb, soon to be a ram, as a pet. I understand that some people think Bartleby is “cute,” but I don’t think “cute” really applies when keeping farm animals. He will soon not be cute, and even if he was, that is a human projection, not a trait of sheep. I think any farm has to be managed in a tough-minded way. People think farms are like paradise, but they are not. They are difficult and expensive, stinky and high-maintenance places. Animals mean manure, water, shelter, medical care, expensive hay and straw. They injure themselves falling down, get stuck in fences, get infections, need to have their hooves timmed, their wool shorn.

I put animals in different categories, as I do not believe they are all the same, nor do I want my reaction to them to be all the same. Dogs and cats are one thing. Donkeys are another. Sheep and cows yet something else. People tend to romanticize and emotionalize all of them sometimes. But a steer is not like a donkey, and a lamb is not like a cat. So we have some time to sort things out. At the moment, I think the farm needs to be tightly managed. We are not rich, and we always have to make choices, just like everyone else.

Bartleby could well be a continuing drama in the story that is Bedlam Farm, a story I helped create and live. Or maybe not. I’ll share the process, as always.

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